Why I Wrote From the Lives We Knew

Sooner or later, someone will ask me why I wrote From the Lives We Knew.

My first answer to this question is found in the words I posted here a while back:

 “I received an unexpected message about a family I had worked with many years ago when they were refugees. Soon we were in touch with each other. The reconnection ignited my passion for refugees, immigrants, asylum-seekers, and all whose lives are uprooted by war or other catastrophes.”

I didn’t set out to react to events such as the story from August 27, 2015, about the 70 migrants found dead in an Austrian truck, or the other story from that day about two boats capsizing off the coast of Libya. It wasn’t my purpose to sensationalize the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing their war-torn homelands in search of safety. And no, I wasn’t thinking about the political ramifications of immigration and refugee resettlement.

However, as I wait for the printing and release of From the Lives We Knew, I feel excited because of  its bearing on such catastrophes. In a small, personal way, I hope my book puts a face on the strangers who long for acts of hospitality.

The back of the book cover gives another answer to the question of why I wrote it: “Readers of this book will feel a closer connection to those whose lives are impacted by international and intercultural conflict.”

The preface of my book includes two paragraphs about this “closer connection”:

Fiction writers usually say something on the order of, “Any resemblance between characters in this book and real live people is purely coincidental and accidental.” Even imagination, however, is built on memories. I’ve changed the names and personalities of the friends who gave me the ideas for these characters. I’ve woven events that never happened into factual reports and subjective reminiscences. I hope the stories and characters ring true. If you think you recognize someone in these pages, however, you’re surely mistaken!

Having made my disclaimer, let me express profound gratitude to those who will remain anonymous, whose permission I never sought, yet without whom these stories could not have been written, and for whose sake they were.

Despite my disclaimer, the characters and the stories they tell in From the Lives We Knew are based on real, live human beings — my personal friends. Because of them, I can’t read about 70 people dying in a truck or 150 people drowning while trying to leave the lives they knew for something better without thinking, “These were mothers and children, fathers and sisters and brothers, possibly nurses, teachers, farmers, cooks, and artists. These were people with names and stories and something to offer all of us. They couldn’t go back home if they had lived.” How many more who can’t go home want me to share my life with them? How much better to see them as friends than as a threat!